Michael Strauss has studied with Eugene Lehner, George Neikrug, Karen Tuttle, Heidi Castleman and Raphael Hillyer. He holds an MM from the New England Conservatory.Heserved ten years as Principal Violist in the Omaha Symphony, five as Principal in the Cedar Rapids Symphony, nine as Principal in the Mid-Atlantic Symphony, and seven with the Mariner String Quartet, which concertized all over the Mid-Atlantic region.

Michael was the lead teacher in the Cedar Rapids Symphony School for five years. Since 1999, he has been Director of Education for the Mid-Atlantic Symphony.Michael is a strings teacher at Washington College in Chestertown, MD and the Community Conservatory in Doylestown, PA.He also has a private studio in Lansdale, PA.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Charles Forbes is a cellist, teacher and chamber music coach, with degrees from Harvard College and Manhattan School of Music. His principal cello teachers were Maurice Eisenberg and Bernard Greenhouse. He also studied cello with Luigi Silva and Pablo Casals, chamber music with Leonard Shure, and conducting with Jonel Perlea.

His orchestral experience includes playing principal cello with the American Symphony (under Stokowski), the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Princeton Chamber Orchestra, the Springfield, MA Symphony and the Vermont Symphony.

Mr. Forbes has given four solo recitals at Carnegie Recital Hall, and he played for thirty years with the New York Camerata, a chamber group with which he toured widely and recorded several discs. The group commissioned many works, including George Crumb's Voice of the Whale, and was the resident ensemble, with the New York-based Affililate Artists, in Wisconsin and Alabama for four seasons. He has also played with the Windsor String Quartet in Vermont, the Network for New Music, Relache, and the Chancellor Quartet in Philadelphia, and, currently, the string quartet Liebesfreud.

Charles Forbes has been on the faculties of Smith, Amherst and Mount Holyoke Colleges, Exeter Academy, the Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Delaware. He has been a chamber music coach with Princeton Chamber Music Play Week since it was founded 20 years ago. He is on the faculties of the Settlement Music School, in Philadelphia, and the Community Conservatory, in Doylestown, PA.

He is the author of Cello Scales and Arpeggios, published by ECS Publishing and available at sharmusic.com.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Michelle D. Cosgrove is a flute chamber ensemble specialist.She studied under Dr. Dent Williamson at The College of New Jersey, graduating with a Bachelors of Music Education in 1998. Under the tutelage of Dr. Kimberly Reighley, she earned her Masters Degree in Flute Performance at West Chester University in 2007.During this time she became acquainted with the baroque flute, and now performs on both the modern and baroque instrument.She is currently coached by Eve Friedman.Michelle maintains a private flute and piano studio, teaches student chamber ensembles and classes, and is Senior Tour Coordinator at the Community Conservatory in Doylestown, PA.She performs with the baroque ensemble La Fiocco, the guitar/flute duo Strings & Wind, and is founder of Ensemble Impromptu.

Lewis R. Baratz studied the recorder with David Hart, Eva Legêne, and Rachel Begley, and harpsichord with David Fuller, Larry Palmer, and Gwendolyn Toth. A Fulbright Scholar and Belgian American Educational Foundation Fellow, he holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Case Western Reserve University. Lewis has performed on recorder, harpsichord, virginal, and English square piano with La Fiocco, Practitioners of Musick, Le Triomphe de l’amour, New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra, and Virtuosi dei seicento. Lewis is also a certified project manager.